Research report 2008 - Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research

Curved membranes render proteins attractive

Biological membranes, flexible bilayers composed of lipid molecules, form the outer envelope of every living cell. Many of its important properties rest on principles that can be understood using methods from soft matter physics. For instance, adhering proteins can interact with each other after imprinting a local membrane curvature, as has recently been demonstrated in computer simulations.